


Hope You'll See

by wirewrappedlily



Series: Afire Love [5]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: A lot of Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Torture, build into a plot, emotionally constipated assholes, use your words children, vignette-to-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-12 09:07:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2103780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is not easy for a double-oh or a Quartermaster. It's even harder when a double-oh and a Quartermaster are in love enough to end the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Choked

James Bond had been in a bar when he got the news that MI6 had blown up, two years and countless missions ago. He'd come home; or as close to home as he'd allowed. 

He'd allowed himself to have a home a year after MI6 blew up. He'd fallen in love with his Quartermaster and summarily moved into the man's home, not knowing that the dead man he was falling for was alive, in the clutches of men whose mission it was to break him. He'd let himself fall, and fall hard; giving over fully to Sunday lay-ins and the thought of the sanctuary Q and he had built for each other getting him through hell and high water. 

Now, he was sitting at home, receiving the news that Q-Branch had been stormed and his lover was trapped inside. 

James knew, in an abstract fashion, that nowhere was ever safe. But Q-Branch; his lover's masterpiece of security second only to their home, was meant to be the safest place for him that wasn't at James's side. 

Q was not meant to be there, either. It was a day off for him; only interrupted because James had been shot with a round that rather emulated the ball-bearing like explosives that Q had created to protect their home and the office. That James had managed to keep it submerged in water before the tone could detonate it, and the effect of the water distorting the sound waves stopping the detonations meant that they weren't quite as smart as Q, but anything that close merited a closer look. 

James, wrapped tightly in gauze and medicated only because Q would kill him if he didn't, got the call playing chess with Win on a board big enough for the pieces to be the size of children. Sitting just outside the atrium addition that Q and he were in the process of building with a cup of tea Q wasn't overly fond of (the better to get rid of it from the cupboard if James drank it himself and then innocently threw the box away, feigning to have forgotten it was a tea he'd picked up specially to bring back to Q from Turkey), James was enjoying the start to Q's three-day leave; prepared to do as much as a distracted Quartermaster would allow him on building before suffering the reaming that would ensue once Q realized he was working with his injuries. 

His heart was in his throat the moment he answered the call. Jasmine didn't call him often; three times, in all the time they'd known each other. Once, because Q had been taken out by the minions and had gotten well and truly sloshed; the next when she had gotten pinned under a piece of machinery she'd been working on and he was the only person she could think of strong enough to get it off of her; and then the last when he'd disappeared for a week, trying to hide himself from even Q while he dealt with how happy and in love he was, and the implications that cast on what could be done to him--to them--because of those feelings. 

The sounds coming through his cell phone speaker made him want to gag for panic. He could hear yelling from the other side of the line; no voices he recognized, but such a cacophony of sound that it was hard, for the first few seconds, to know what was happening. 

"Win, get Eve on the line." James ordered, voice gone cold. He talked to the semi-sentient Rhoomba, but the house was what responded, a soft tone coming through before the ringing began. Eve answered quickly, and James knew that she was already aware. 

_"They came in through the secondary exit. Must've fooled our biometrics somehow--"_

" _Q is in there_ ," James growled, sounding like death, "find me a way in to get him _out_." 

_"We've sent 002 in with an agent who helped to install the biometrics, but they've fooled the system in such a way that neither has survived the attempt. We can't reset the system remotely; and the only person who possibly could is down there with unknown hostiles. Believe me, James, I'm trying."_

"Try harder! I don't bloody care if I have to burrow through the bloody upper floors to get into the tunnels, this ends quickly or it ends quickly and bloodily."

 _"Do not threaten me, James."_ Eve snarled, _"He's my friend; they all are. We will get to him and get him out, but you need to stay calm and try not to worsen the situation."_

"I can bloody hear them, Eve! Jasmine's called my cell! I can hear at least three of the interns crying and the bastards screaming at Q to give them the information they want--which he won't!"

 _"James!"_ Eve practically roared, _"Q is a highly-trained, high-ranking member of MI6, in a room full of highly-trained members of MI6. He will get through this."_

James took in a deep breath, pressing his eyes closed, forcing the breath from his lungs again. He knew with a clarity that came with setting up thousands of shots that if anything happened to Q, he'd be broken past anything the world had managed before. He didn't know what he would do; and that alone was more than James could handle thinking about. James had been able to pull through losing everyone, but if he lost Q, after all they'd done to get to each other, the world would go down in fire and blood, with James Bond pulling the trigger in the middle of it. 

Swallowing, James made himself speak, "Can you access the CCTV?" 

_"Of course, why?"_ Eve asked immediately. 

"Because if Jasmine is communicating with me, Q will be, too. Watch for a flashing light: Q and I Morse to each other when I'm in the field and can't talk to him. Well, I Morse to him, and he talks to me." 

_"We're finding an angle now."_ Eve reported. 

"I'm on my way. And, Eve? Anyone who stops me for speeding will be kneecapped." 

_"Acceptable use of force."_ Eve agreed lightly, _"I'll see you in a few minutes."_

James looked to Win, his face more grey than he'd looked since Q had brought brightness and laughter back into his life. "Let's get him home, shall we, dear?"


	2. I Need To Know

Q was laughing in the middle of a gathering of politicos, his bright eyes flashing as he moved his gaze to James across the room, comfortably mingling with Jasmine, Alec, and 005, Kareena. It was a look that asked for exfiltration, and James smirked to himself, sipping up the last of his glass of champagne before braving the shark-infested waters ahead to rescue his lover. "Quartermaster, if I may steal you a moment?" 

Making his excuses, Q played himself into James's hands, expecting to be handed some mangled piece of something that James had swiped off his desk just so that he could give that excuse when this happened. But no, Q was wrapped in one strong arm and practically swept off his feet onto the dancefloor, his startled yell turning into a laugh as James settled them against each other with a devilish grin. "This isn't exactly my scene, James." Q teased, settling into a sway that was all they would manage right now; no need for anyone else to know that Q had learned to dance as a stepping stone to learning to fight. "Thank you for saving me, but I rather hoped not to make a spectacle of myself tonight..." 

"I can't wait to get you out of that thrice-damned jacket. You in that waistcoat is...mouthwatering." James growled out, and Q watched as his pupils dilated with his words, just the thought enough of an excitement. 

"Well, first we have to clean house." Q muttered, eyes flashing over James's shoulder, "I'd hate to be a massive cliche, but someone here isn't who he seems." Q's eyes settled on James meaningfully, and James took immediate stock of the room, "Jasmine and I intercepted a text before we left Q-Branch. I would've told you sooner, but then you may well have dragged me out of here, and I would loose my chance..." 

James hated with a fiery passion that Q let him go and slipped from his arms, turning as one of the security agents strode towards Eve and Tanner, his hand going for a pistol that wasn't meant to be there. Q whipped off the jacket, whipping it forward and catching the man's hand, grabbing the end as it looped around his wrist, and yanking as Jasmine stepped forward, stamping her high-heeled foot down as hard as possible on the man's foot and throwing such a solid left-hook that James had to stop himself from gaping as the man started going down, only to receive a bony knee to the kidney and a solid knock on the back of his head with his own gun. 

He falls forward, completely knocked out, and Jasmine and Q simply look up at one another before high-fiving like children. 

"So much for not making a spectacle of yourself," James muttered, eyes dancing with laughter even as the panic of seeing Q in a fight situation thundered at his heart.

Q shrugged, smoothing down his waistcoat and smartly flicking the buttons on his cuffs open, cleanly rolling them up with three smooth flicks of his wrist, pursing his lips as he stared down over the tops of his glasses. "Your credentials have been flagged for possible connetions to an insurgents' group based out of Moscow. Alec, if you please..." 

Making a shooing gesture with his hand, Q stepped into James's side, sliding his fingers through James's and looking over at Jasmine. 

"Your hand okay?" 

"Yeah, boss; 'm fine." She shrugged, fading back into looking severely uncomfortable in the gown she'd been pressed into wearing. 

"Go home, have much vodka." 

"Many drunks." She grinned, kissing Q's cheek quickly before skipping off.

James turned his slightly stunned look on Q, and the man could only laugh, tipping up on his toes to peck a kiss to James's cheek, "Let's go home. You can strip me out of the waistcoat and we can make the most of the mandatory hangover day-off with those takeaway leftovers and no clothes." 

As if he hadn't just saved Eve and Tanner from an attempt on their lives, Q waved away the various real members of the security team, leading James out by their interlaced fingers. Q hailed a cab, sliding against James in the back seat and smiling impishly. James held his tongue until they reached the house, turning on Q and boxing him in against their door the moment it had shut behind them, "Bastian...what the bloody hell do you think you were doing?" 

"Saving Eve." Q answered simply, "I had you right there with me--" 

"You're the most important member of MI6!" James practically bellowed, his eyes burning. He knew that that wasn't supposed to be true; he knew that, just as Eve and Tanner and he were all replaceable, Q was, too--after a fashion. Q's was a mind that would never be replaced, but in the grander scale of things, they were all infinitely replaceable cogs in a machine that couldn't be allowed to break down just because one was shattered. But in that moment, with Q backed up against the door, so _small_ and _breakable_ and bloody _perfect_ that James was choking for wanting to simply curl around him like a great old dragon hoarding his treasure, those words that couldn't be true simply _were_. Q was the most important piece of the world, and James couldn't bear the thought of losing him. "You kept me and Alec and Eve and bloody Tanner in the dark, Q. You let none of us know that our lives were in danger! That you were going to risk your neck! I could kill you for doing this! What the hell do you think would have happened if he'd gotten past you? What do you think would've happened if something had happened to you?!"

"JAMES!" Q roared, and though the man was soft, calm, and quiet in all regards; he could pack a bloody good punch when he wanted to. He pushed off the door, and suddenly James found himself backed up against the cabinet of tools by Q's workbench. "If you think for one bloody minute that I'd _let_ anything happen to you or Eve or fucking Tanner, you're out of your fucking gourd! Jasmine and I had three other agents vying for a shot at him, I just got there fucking first. And if you think for a buggering milisecond that I wouldn't be able to take a suicidal fuckwit with a gun and shit for orders, I will consider it my bloody duty to mop the fucking floor with you the next time you insist we spar. I am not you: I would _never_ take the risks with my life and the lives of others that you so cavalierly take every fucking day! In case it's slipped your notice: I can be just as fucking deadly as you are, even without a keyboard under my hands." The last, growled murmur was delivered with eyes so cold and unfeeling that if it had been any other person but James Bond on the receiving end, there would have been a heartattack scare in the wake of their passing. But to James, the words ringing in his ears were making him even angrier.

"You think I treat the collateral lives lost cavalierly?! You think I don't have nightmares when I've had to drag a father away from his daughter and his wife because both were killed in front of us? If you're going to treat me like a fucking sociopath, why are we even here?!" 

"You're not a sociopath, James." Q snapped, "But you can't for one second claim that you treat your own life with any kind of respect...and wasn't that why you started yelling in the first place?"

Q moved away from him, and James felt nothing but icy chill, even though Q hadn't boxed him in nearly so physically as James had done to Q. 

The next morning, James woke under a blanket he hadn't had on the couch with him, and Q was gone from the apartment, a small bouquet of azaleas sitting on the kitchen table with a note explaining what fresh hell had called Q into work, and expressing the hope that he could be free for dinner. 

James made dinner and brought it to Q-Branch, ordering a pizza for the minions while he shut himself and Q in Q's office for an hour, the two of them starting in a haze of apologetic embraces until finally the fear tempered down, and they could dig in to the heartiest, more nutritionally sound stew James had come up with yet that he could manage to get Q to concentrate long enough to eat. And if, after their hour, Jasmine was the only one brave or stupid enough to go in and make sure they were both alright, only to find her boss laying on top of his lover on the couch that said lover had actually stolen from Eve's office to replace the fold-away cot that had been Q's napping area, then she didn't say a damn word about it, merely activating the protocol known as Earl Grey among the minions; thereby silencing everyone, wary of waking up the Quartermaster with anything short of nuclear fallout, or risk facing the double-oh that would surely follow. 

Q hummed into James's chest, rubbing his cold nose against the soft fabric of his button-up. James's hand was buried in his curls, his body warm and soft in a way that it rarely was. They were safe and warm, the weight of MI6 sitting over them and letting James relax, for once; bleeding warmth into him and cocooning him in the feeling of being safe.


	3. Take My Hand

James had Q's long legs tucked over his own, James's large hand folded around Q's skinny calf as he read an online paper, Q buried in actual paperwork. 

The quiet that had settled over them was so deeply peaceful that James couldn't help the feeling of expansive happiness pushing his heart to grow in his chest. Sliding his gaze to take in the curve of Q's neck and the long, perfect lines of his fingers holding a manilia folder stack almost wider than him, James sipped in a breath, his mind trailing to the number of people he'd lost over the years. Licking his lips, James put the tablet away, moving his now-free hand to Q's thigh, drawing his gaze away from the files. "Are you okay?" Q asked quietly, putting the files down and shifting up so that he could crawl over, sitting on James's lap, "I know the news is never good, but--" 

"Q, do you know what would happen to me...if I lost you?" 

Q reached for James's cheek, brushing his thumb back and forth over his stubbled skin, sliding over to straddle his lap, "You'd be quite cross, I imagine." Q teased, leaning in and nipping along the line of James's jaw, "Not nearly as cross as I would be, of course; and perhaps not as vengeful." 

James's hands gripped his hips, leaning back so that Q couldn't continue to mouth at his skin, "Q, it would...I'd be..." 

Q's fingers moved over James's lips gently, his manner going quiet and soft. "You're a good man, James Bond. Even if you're the reason half my paperwork is generated. And we've proven many times now; I'm too stubborn to die, and you have the gift of resurrection." Q leaned in, wrapping James in his arms and kissing him with his whole body, "I will always be waiting for you to come back to me." 

James leaned his forehead against Q's, breathing him in for a long time before he made the decision to take him to bed. Q wrapped his long arms and legs around James, sliding his fingers through the short crop of blond hair at the back of his neck and kissing him in a way that made James want to do nothing but kiss him for the rest of his life. 

Sleepily, James slowly stripped them both, laying Q down on the bed like he was something that could so easily be broken if James didn't take care. Q stared up at him, almost scared of what was going through James's mind. It was slow, and so impossibly sweet that Q felt as if he was breaking apart under each slide of James's fingers over his skin. Slicking his fingers, James kissed every whimper of sound from Q's throat, teasing Q into such a heady rush of need that he wanted to crawl into James's skin and be lost to the man forever. 

There was fear in James's eyes; a fear that should never have been allowed to get there. Q was whimpering as James tapped against his palm with gun-calloused fingers, using Morse to say what he couldn't put to words the world would hear. 'I love you.' 'Never leave me.' 'I need you safe.' 

Curling his fingers around James's, Q pulled James down to lay pressed against him, shuddering under the delicious weight of him, sighing at the thickness of his cock stretching him open. Q sighed, dragging his fingertips over the back of James's neck and pressing kisses down from his ear, along the curve of his neck, "I love you...I love you so much..." 

James hushed him, shifting his hips as much as he could pressed against Q in every other way, and Q let out a small cry as he came, twitching in James's arms. 

James didn't even make to pull out, grunting softly as Q wrapped his long legs around James's back, holding him there, his cock still rubbing into Q's prostate with every harsh breath the man took, his quivering body locking down with every near-painful hit of pleasure. 

When Q was almost in tears, James carefully slid himself free, shifting Q onto his side and covering him with his body, wrapped tight around him, Q's shudders easing at the change in angle. 

Q sighed, closing his eyes and holding onto James's arms as he started moving against James's hips, biting hard into his lower lip. James wrapped a hand around Q's cock, tacky with cum and still sensitive enough that Q's head pushed back on James's shoulder, a whine slipping out as he struggled to turn his head just enough so that he could lick into James's mouth. 

Q's short, blunt nails made half-moons in James's skin as he came for a second time, mouth fallen open on a silent scream and body tremouring as James worked him through a nearly-dry orgasm, tears sliding down Q's temples. 

James came with a soft groan, his mouth tucked against the curve of pale throat offered up to him, his hands gentling over Q's skin as Q whimpered desperately, trying in the most uncoordinated way to thrust back against him, milk him through the wave of pleasure and fill himself with everything James had to give. 

James couldn't take hearing Q tell him he loved him, too; didn't think he could handle anything more than curling up around him, kissing every inch of his skin and watching him sleep. 

Q didn't relinquish his hold on James's arms, though, moving to lace their fingers together and bringing the work-worn skin to his lips, sighing softly as he pressed kisses to James's fingers, to the scars his hands bore, and the callouses that had been caused by the grip of a gun or the work of a weight. 

"Do you know what I would do without you?" Q asked, voice a rough whisper. 

James didn't answer; he didn't need to. The truth was, there was no answer. James knew he would always do whatever he had to get home to Q. And when that had become true, he should have retired or ended it. But it was too late for either of those things now.


	4. Run Away

His date, James would admit, was beautiful. But her beauty was something that had only registered to him in the oddest of ways. He looked over the masks and costumes of Carnivale and wished so hard it was an ache in his soul that Q was the one on his arm, seeing the fireworks and dancing so seamlessly with him. 

James held no misconceptions, however, that Q had a wholly other opinion on the beauty of his date; that much was evidenced by the dulcet tones of R in his ear, Q having excused himself to go eat something--as if that excuse wouldn't tip James off immediately that something was wrong with his lover.

 _"Jasmine is with him, 007; focus on the mission, or we'll lose all chance at stopping this dirty bomb."_  

"I understand, R. It does not make this any easier." James growled as he picked up his scotch and his date's flute of champagne. 

 _"I understand, 007. He does know...he loves you, Mr. Bond. More than you know."_  

James cast a look to his date, seriously doubting that R knew better than he how Q loved him: James had seen Q accost a department head for implying that James was the most expendable of the double-ohs. "Just because he knows the job," James replied on a sigh before he reached the curvy, elegant woman, "doesn't mean he likes it." 

It was utterly unfair; unfair enough to make him sick. He was being forced to charm this woman, to bed her; and his lover, a man who he would want nothing more than to be faithful to. He was a possessive bastard, he knew; and Q couldn't be. His body couldn't belong to Q and Q alone, the most unfair part of their lives James could think of. His heart was Q's, and his alone; how different it was with Q showing just how false things with Vesper had been. 

He danced with the girl thinking about the flutter of Q's fingers over his first cup of tea, or the way they so gorgeously tickled the ivories of the grand piano James had dragged into the atrium while Q had been laid up with the flu for a week: the thing nearly falling apart when James disturbed the dust holding it together, Q excavating it from a decade or two of disuse and restoring it, painstakingly, with James's hands working the tools Q needed him to in order to make something or the broken, abused thing James had dragged home. Q had been tucked up in blankets, surrounded in a nest of pillows with a fire in the small fireplace James had convinced him to install for the winter months, watching James carve wood and restore supports; tuning it with his perfect pitch and curling up with his eyes happily closed as James had played the few songs he knew, getting everything perfect. When Q had been given a clean bill of health, James had sat him down, and just listened to him _play_ ; knowing that Q hadn't been properly taught, but knowing, too, that Q would find the perfect notes and play them just when they were most needed. 

With the ball swirling around him, James wanted to be back in his favoured armchair, wearing Q's favourite hoodie, and watching the rain fall as Q played a symphony with nothing but the piano, the storm, and the city they both so dearly loved. 

 _"James, kill her. She's the head; not the stupid bastard, she's the one behind the chemical buy-out."_ Q's voice in his ear was like a blessing, and James took a happy breath, murmuring some line that Q never would've even entertained and leading her away. He took a poison he'd swiped off of Q's desk, injecting her with a sleight of hand that would have made Q cry for its beauty. He didn't so much as kiss her, dropping her heartlessly into a canal, and walking away. 

"Q, let's go dancing when I get home, darling." 

 _"Find the bloody bomb and I might just let you come home."_ Q replied icily, and James laughed, open and airy and ready to do what had to be done. 

James would find the bomb, dismantle it, and bring home Q whatever treats he could find. Not a tea, this time; something different. Something special for him, something to show him just how completely he was loved. 

He looked forward to crawling into bed with Q, curling around him and holding him until they could watch the sunrise outside of the wall of windows Q had installed in his bedroom. James loved watching the sunrise, watching the colours paint over Q's skin, and drawing the lines of shadow cast over his tiny frame with his tongue and lips. James grinned to himself, chuckling as he happily picked up into a light jog; the faster to get home to Q. 

He found the bomb; disarmed it, and was back on English soil quickly. 

He met Q on the tarmac, and the man looked as if he'd been crying for days without stop. 

"James..." Q sighed, and James knew when he didn't reach out to him that something terrible had gone irrevocably wrong, "I-I've arranged things...You can have the house for now. I've arranged a flat, but...it will be a few days--" 

"Q, what the bloody hell--" 

"I can't do this anymore, James. I can't keep wondering when you'll decide you're bored; when you'll decide to leave me. I have never understood what you saw in me...but I do understand that you won't see it forever. You're James Bond; you surround yourself with the most beautiful, dangerous lovers you can find--" 

"Bastian, you stop this now." James reached out, gripping Q's upper-arms tight, "You stop it now, because I can't hear this. I won't. You're the most beautiful, dangerous creature I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, and I will not lose you because of the job. I can't." 

"James...you love this job. You do. But it's tearing me apart. I can't ask you to stay; because I can't handle the burden of knowing just how unhappy I make you. This is the only way--" 

"It isn't!" James roared, shaking Q enough that people might've come to stop the abuse if there was anyone around to see it. "Make it so that I don't go on honeypot missions; send me out with someone else to seduce the target. I don't care. Don't do this." 

"James...I love you. I love you for who you are; I will not change you. Thank you...for loving me back. I know it wasn't worth it; I know I'm a pain. I'll remain as the voice on the other end if you want; Jasmine could take over if you don't. I'll always find you still. But you and I...I can't do it."

"No, Bastian!" James reached for him, trying to catch his arms, to keep him from walking away. It felt as if the world was breaking, and James was the reason--and the only one to see it coming. " _Please_." He begged, not caring what it took. "Don't do this. Please don't. I'll do anything. Please don't leave me." 

Q had tears in his eyes as he leaned in and up, kissing James's cheek softly, "I will always be here for you, James." 


	5. What Have They Done to You?

James took missions in such rapid succession that he hadn't actually set foot on English soil for nearly six months; Jasmine willing to board a plane to re-equip him and James more than happy not to see London again. 

The lease on the flat Q had arranged for him had fallen through: James had gotten Alec to pick up the small box of things James hadn't even looked at since he'd left his and Q's home. He hadn't packed hardly anything; leaving almost before he'd arrived and refusing to look back. 

Alec was close to moving in with Eve, though; and though James tried to be happy for his oldest friend, he couldn't help but hate him. Eve kept James informed, though. She kept care of Q, made sure that this stupid break-up didn't break him beyond repair. James wanted, badly, to hate Q for doing this. But hating himself for making Q feel he had to came so much more naturally. James had a new argument every night; playing it out, over and over and over in his head, each time ending with Q in his arms. It was worse than the betrayal of Vesper; worse than the death of M. It was a torture that James couldn't stop himself from going through: knowing where Q was, that he was in bloody _reach_ , but totally unable to get him. 

It wasn't Jasmine's fault, when James got caught up to in Nigeria with the faction that he'd nearly torn apart in Vietnam. It was James's fault, and he knew it full well; he let it happen, after a fashion. 

James knew for as much Q had let Jasmine take over his handling, Q was never far away. He knew that Q would be able to find him, would be able to stop them and save him; and though he viciously accused himself of being a fucking fool for it, he had faith that Q would always care enough to at least try. 

But when they took bamboo rods to his feet until they were all but shredded, showing him outright the chip they pulled from the left insole of his foot, James felt as if the world had finally crumbled completely. 

They gassed him with something that made it feel like a sip of air felt like glass shattered in his throat; coughing so hard that eventually he was coughing blood--and they never asked a question. They didn't want information: just pain. James, in that regard, may have been a disappointment. He laughed around the blood at the thought that their goal was his pain. He was past pain, had been since Q had taken himself away. 

Waterboarding was a break from the gas, whatever the fuck that was. James wished they were just a little sloppier; just enough so that he could have a few blissful moments of being fully dead. They shot out his knees first, then his shoulders. He laughed again when they shot his left shoulder; as if they could do something more than he'd already been through. They broke every bone in his left hand, and James was idly wondering if Q had managed to finish that bit of circuitry that had nearly cost him a finger eight months ago. 

When the fire came, James thought it would be coming for him; that the smell of burnt flesh and hair would make him gag up the blood running constantly down the back of his throat and the near-rotten bread they force-fed him just to keep him alive and in pain. 

It came for them, though. It came without warning or mercy, and it came with a half-crazed Russian behind it; Alec Trevelyan saving his ass, once again. 

It wasn't Alec that came to kneel in front of James where he was bound upright just high enough that there was no slack, and he had to struggle to keep from dislocating his already-ruined shoulders with his toes barely brushing the floor. 

It wasn't Alec that picked the locks and hushed him when he grunted for the pain of being released, being moved. 

It wasn't Alec whose voice carried the simple message 'We got him.' 

James knew he'd lost his mind: torture did that to people. 

Because there was no way in hell that he was actually seeing Q.


	6. Hope to Die

Q spent every day James was in a drug-induced coma tearing apart every fucking piece of the two survivors of Alec's play with fire. 

Sending Alec Trevelyan into a hostage-situation with a fucking flamethrower when it was James on the line had been a risky enough move that Q hadn't so much as called Eve since he'd done it. They could label him rogue: they could take his Branch from him, take his agents, but there was no one in Heaven or on Earth that could ever presume to order Bastian Kelly not to go after the man he loved. 

"You look gorgeous." Alec commented dryly on the first day that James was taken off of the drugs that would keep him under. He sat with his boots on the end of the bed, leaned back in the hospital chair with a massive cup of coffee and looking for all the world like a man without a care. 

"Ta, Alec." Q replied, voice bordering on sounding drugged. 

"I've been meaning to ask, boss," Alec muttered, taking a long swallow of coffee, "why then?" 

Q's brows raised, "Because that woman James was with wasn't the perpetrator. I ordered him to kill her, because she was beautiful and he would have slept with her. And I would've wondered why the fuck he'd come back to someone like me." 

"Oh? So the bastard that made the dirty bomb--" 

"I arranged an accident. I had to see if I could. We had our suspicions, James was there to confirm and then kill. I just...That's why I couldn't let him be mine. Because there's no reason why he'd ever want me." 

"That's fucking nonsense." Alec commented blandly. "Do you hear the words leaving your mouth right now?" 

Q looked up at him, "You can't pretend that you didn't wonder what the fuck someone like him was doing still with someone like me. I might've been worth a notch in the bedpost, but James...I never thought I'd have him, so it was safe to want him." 

"And then he fell for you, and you suddenly had everything you wanted, so you had to find a way to fuck it up and make him feel like shit for it."

"What?! No! I never meant--" 

"Q, if I felt about anyone the same way he feels about you, having them leave me even tangentially because of me would make me want to kill myself." 

Q went quiet, looking at the man on the bed, feeling the urge to scream at the sight of all the bruises and bloodied bandages, all the casts and dressings. 

"You know full well that I wondered: I would've thought that you were a rebel enough to want to prove me and anyone else bloody wrong. You're the youngest Quartermaster to have ever been, and you're perhaps the only person to have ever captured James Bond's heart. When you decide to rule the world, don't tell me, just do it: I'd hate to even try to consider being sent after you, that's how badly this side would lose." 

Q let out a snort, "I might well no longer be Quartermaster after disobeying a direct order from Eve and Tanner." 

Alec snorted, "Eve's smarter than that, at least. Tanner will take some convincing, but Eve knows that I couldn't leave him there any more than you could; and you'd never let an agent down like that." 

It was Q's turn to snort, "Really? Because this feels awfully preferential." 

"Q, had it been me lost out there, what would you have done?" 

"I'd've hacked every server I could, found you on a camera phone or a CCTV clip, and sent James to get you out." 

"And for 008?" 

"I'd rig a bomb to go off and send in an extraction team to take out anyone in the confusion." 

"No one even likes 008. He's a pompous prick, and he flirts with both you _and_ Eve." Alec told him, "You did no more for him than you would've done for us: sent the best you had at your disposal." 

Q snorted, his laughter nearly a sob. Alec grinned at him, swinging his legs down to stand up, clapping a hand to Q's shoulder, looking him in the eye. Looking from the great lump of blood and bruises to the man near to breaking, Alec took a deep breath; wishing he was the kind of man to have hope.

"You can fix this, wiz kid. You more than anyone else can." 

It was at that moment that the alert on the heart monitor flat-lined. 

Alec's own heart felt like it was about to stop. The pain in Q's face was going to haunt him for every nightmare he'd ever have. He had to move fast; Alec picked Q up and moved him out of the way, holding him back from flinging himself on his flat-lining love. A strangled scream tore out of Q's mouth as Alec wrestled him out of the room, the doctors having rushed in. Q struggled out of Alec's arms, but didn't go in, his body curved as if he was in pain, standing in the doorway watching as they tried to revive James Bond, the man who should never have been able to die.


	7. Make You Feel Safe

Q had spent too much time sitting beside hospital beds. He rarely woke up _in_ one, though. Moneypenny was sitting beside him, looking for all the world like a storm in the shape of a woman, and that woman was not impressed with him. "Whoever sedated me needs to take a refresher course on bedside manner, this bruise feels more like a broken neck." 

Eve cocked an eyebrow, "Alec is used to his injections causing death, not unconsciousness." 

"Yes, well, he can still bloody well learn to inject a subject so that it will leave _no trace_ , instead of having a bloody post-mortem hematoma for me to try to explain away." 

Eve let amusement flash in her eyes, but it was gone almost as quickly as it'd arrived. "He's alive." 

Q tried to sit up immediately, only to find himself handcuffed to the hospital bed. Q examined it, knowing that he could get out of it in seconds, but he cocked a brow at Eve, "Kinky." 

"You have some explaining to do." 

"I got my agent out." Q slid into the role of uninvested Quartermaster with a practiced ease; biting back his smirk, but unable to keep himself from tilting his chin, defiant and daring her to go after him with what he'd done for James. 

"You _flew_ halfway across the fucking _world_. _You_ went with that bloody fucking idiot. You're not to do that again, or I will end you and let this suicidal tendency of yours run its proper course." 

"Eve...I went against orders, who else was I supposed to send?" 

" _Me!_ " She shrilled, indignant. "Jasmine! Anyone bloody else! Did you for one second think I laboured under the impression you'd actually _follow_ my orders?" 

Q watched, amused, "So I take it I'm in trouble." 

"You've no idea. You're suspended until further notice: You'll be on-call for dire situations, but nothing else." 

"Ball park?" 

Eve shrugged, "However bloody long it takes for James to heal enough to feel even remotely useful." 

Q snorted, "I'm resigning as Quartermaster. You can't expect me to be able to do my job, not after all this. R will be promoted to Q, and I will remain on a consultant basis. I will run missions for specially sensitive ops, and I will continue to be the architect of your technical chaos, but I can't be Q." 

Eve settled back in the chair. "You will retain your title as Q. There are three members of your team better-suited to doing the paperwork we so often pile you under, and the boffins might mutiny if their overlord were anyone but you. You will spend four of seven weekdays in Q-Branch, otherwise we can arrange it so that you can work from wherever you deem fit."

"And James? What will you offer him? The damage done to his left hand will never mend enough that he'll be able to safely return to the field, and even if he did; his knees and shoulders could hardly take much more abuse, let alone his lungs. And after I got him to quit smoking, too, those bastards--" 

"Q." Eve called him out of the rage he was lathering himself into. "James can't return to the field, you're correct. But I can't tell you where he's going, either." 

"What, like he's some old dog and you're telling me he's going to live on a relative's farm?" Q thundered, eyes wild. He'd thought that Eve had suspended him as she had in order for him to find a way to take care of the man; not that they would tear him away from any and all chance of mending the idiocy he'd worked himself into. 

"You terminated the relationship, Q. You may still have many of the legal priviledges of being all-but married to the man, but because I know that that relationship has rather spectacularly ended, I can't in good conscience tell you more than that he is alive, and will heal. I'm sorry, Q." 

"No, you can't, Eve..." Q had tears in his eyes. He was out of the cuffs with what seemed to be little more than a flick of his wrist, off the bed and out the door for Bond's room before Eve even realized that while he'd unchained himself, he'd managed to cuff her in the same motion. 

Alec was sitting outside of Bond's room, apparently waiting. He looked tired, and the careless edge to him had disappeared. "If I want to ever sleep in the bed again, I can't let you inside." 

"If you don't want me to hack you so hard _toasters_ will break down at the sight of you, you'll get out of my fucking way." 

"He's with his doctors, Q." Alec told him, still situated between Q and the door he needed to get through. "He's...he's lost. They don't know how badly it is, but James is not the man we knew. He thinks he's hallucinated being rescued; maybe that he's finally died, and that this is his Purgatory. But he can't take anymore stress, emotional or physical. And, I'm sorry, but seeing you..." 

Alec trailed off, because Q was backing away from him now, staring past his shoulder with unseeing eyes. "I helped to break him, then, didn't I?" 

"Q..." Alec reached his hands up, palms out, but Q all but flinched away, whirling and running as if he didn't want the double-oh to see that the tears brimming in his eyes were about to fall. As if Alec were really much better off. 

In the room behind him, James was laughing like a mad man, trying to get himself unstrapped from the bed enough to tear out the wires: lost enough that he didn't care when he messed up his hand again, or when the nurse came to sedate him once more. He fell asleep laughing, or sobbing, possibly screaming. It really didn't matter anymore. 

~

Just because he wasn't allowed to be near him, didn't mean that Q couldn't keep an eye on James. 

He hacked Medical, isolating the speaker system in James's room and kept a playlist of songs James had loved quietly filtering in every time James was in the room alone.

The first time it had made James cry, Q had sat in the dark on his couch shaking for hours, tears on his face going unnoticed while James sobbed, brought low enough that he didn't know he wasn't laughing anymore. 

"James," he murmured after a particularly long night, and James perked up at the sound of his voice. 

_"I know it can't be a trick. Can't be a trick because no one has a voice like that but him."_ James whispered, blue eyes staring up at the security camera with a blankness that made Q ache to have James back. 

"It isn't a trick..." Q assured him softly, pieces clicking into place; of how he could help him. 

_"I almost forgot...thought I must've when he didn't talk...when I thought I saw..."_ James was curling into himself, Q could hear that much in his voice, and he scrambled for a way to reassure James that the man couldn't shoot down. 

"You haven't lost me, James. I'm right here, love." Q's voice threatened tears, but he couldn't let it crack. "I've got you; you're safe." 

James twitched, a denial in that single jerk of motion, looking away from the camera as if the voice would go away just because he couldn't see the piece of tech anymore, _"Not bloody safe...can't be him--"_

"You're my sunlight, James: I can't lie to you." Q interrupted. "You're in Medical, James. I need you to focus on healing so you can _get out_. God, do I wish that I hadn't fucked this so entirely...I-I fucking hate myself--" 

James was laughing again; the sound raw and high and so horribly wrong Q wanted to bleach it from his memory, _"I-I f-fucked it--"_

Q knew then that he was losing James's focus. The stuttering was new, but his gut told him that he needed to fear it. "James, I want you to listen to my voice and feel me right beside you. I want you to feel me holding you, know you're safe, and warm, and loved. I will always love you, and I was a fool to think that I for one second would be able to be satisfied loving you from afar. I need you, and not by halves; not by parts. I miss you so fucking much, Bond, you have no idea." Q sniffed, reaching for a tissue as he shivered in the cold dark. "I'd love to run my fingers through your hair again...kiss all the places you aren't bruised, because I'm scared a breath might break us both. I'd love to feel you in my arms, feel the weight of you solid against me. You're always so warm, James. So damnably warm and comforting and lovely. I can't sleep without taking out that old hoodie and smelling you on it, remembering the feel of you in it. My knight. _Mine_. You're still carved into my heart, 007: you always will be." 

James was settling, relaxing in a way that he hadn't been, even when he was sedated into his unconsciousness. Q blinked as he realized that he hadn't actually slept without someone knocking him out, and Q continued to talk. He would talk until he physically couldn't anymore, and then he'd find another way. Anything to get James to sleep; he so desperately needed it. 

James recovered slowly even with Q's voice in his ear every night for months; they stopped strapping him to the bed when he stopped trying to injure himself or anyone that went near him. He stopped the insane laughter around the time he managed to stop questioning if Q was a trick or not. And when he finally left, Q searched him out on CCTV, because he wasn't discharged: his hand is still mostly in pieces, but he's James Bond, and there would never be a hospital in the world that could ever boast of holding him. 

He couldn't find him until his own security system registered a breach, and then Q was nearly tripping over himself. 

"Tell me you didn't drive here," Was the first thing Q could manage to get out of his mouth at the sight of his broken, perfect lover. 

"You're the voice in my ear, Q." James answered him not at all, but it's enough for Q to circle closer, his hands clenched into fists to keep from falling into James like a moon into orbit. 

Q swallowed, folding into himself and shaking as he forced himself to breathe, "They were going to take you away somewhere. To keep you safe. I wasn't allowed--" 

James crossed the room in three steps, taking Q against his battered body and kissing the sense out of him. "There isn't a force on this earth that could keep me from you. Not after...not after what you've done to bring me back. You can't send me away again, Q. I won't go. Nothing ever hurt like not having you hurts." 

"James...It's not magically fixed." Q whispered, tears in his eyes. "You're still James Bond, the greatest double-oh in the world. The man who can take down an army with one gun and a broken collarbone. I'm not enough--" 

"God, you really think that? Then I bloody well need to start doing my fucking job." James muttered, his right hand, that had only been dislocated; not shattered like the other, dragging over Q's curls. "Because I should have been making it quite fucking clear that the only person I will ever want is you. I should've fucking retired the moment you tried to end it. I should have done it the second you left the comm. I could shoot myself for making you feel like that. Will you give me another chance to do this properly? Please, Q. Will you let me try again?" 

Q couldn't speak, nodding his head jerkily and feeling himself crumple as James pulled him in, holding him tighter than Q should allow. 

Q wrapped his arms around James gingerly, moving to support his weight as James began to lose the inhuman strength that had been keeping him upright. Getting them to bed was no small task, but Q would do it. He would do whatever he had to to make James know that he was so fucking sorry. James would never let him apologize, would abhor him taking the blame. But the blame was his to take, in the ways that really mattered. He would have to let James make him feel that loved. He knew the ways James had been telling him before; he just hadn't really heard him until it was too late, and he'd thought he'd lost him for good. 

Q laid them down in the bed he hadn't been able to force himself into, listening as Win emerged, whirring as he took off from the floor to see what was going on. 

"James!" Win chirped happily, and Q sniffed, nodding. 

"Yeah, Win; I'm back." James answered, voice a little strained, though he'd never let it really show how much had been taken out of him. 

"He wouldn't talk to me when I tried to explain what had happened." Q told him on a whisper as Win hovered out of the room and down the hall. Q let his lips hover over James's hands, staring down at him on their bed. "He's your son, he really is." 

James laughed softly; a real laugh this time, not maddened or made. Q kissed his forehead, careful to miss the bruises as he did. "If I've lost my mind...if this is some kind of afterlife...I don't think I could ever go back." 

Q brushed his hands through James's hair, knowing that James would be itching under all that bandaging to scrub himself almost raw until the memories were gone. "You're meant to be the one driving me crazy, James; not the other way around." Smiling, Q pressed the most delicate of kisses to James's lips, and ran his fingers through the now too-long strands again. 

"I'm no longer an agent of MI6." Q kissed the look of mourning off of his face, sharing air for a minute before swallowing and taking a breath to answer.

"And I'm only barely a Quartermaster."


End file.
